Laois Libraries is delighted to present an online talk by Catherine Candy and Laurence Cox focusing on the impact of Irish people as agitators against Empire and agents of decolonisation in British controlled Asia.Read More

On the night of March 6th 1923 Captain Mick Dunne of the National Army's Dublin Guard was killed along with several comrades in an I.R.A. booby-trap explosion in Kerry - an event which launched a series of retaliatory atrocities. This online event tells the story of Mick Dunne, who was of Laois-extraction, and the Dublin...Read More

There is a somewhat curious monument in the court square in Stradbally. Erected ‘In memory of a brave father and two worthy sons’ its curiosity lies in the fact that it commemorates two pro-Treaty victims of the political violence of the 1920s, something which is comparatively rare, and in that it does not mention the...Read More

Laois Heritage Society have a great talk coming up this Thursday 26th January with Seán Murray, Laois Heritage Society chairperson, and the person behind the great blog at Laois Archaeology. The talk is entitled 'The Pass of the Plumes & Laois in the 9 Years War'. It will be hosted in the Portlaoise Parish Centre...Read More

The January meeting of the Genealogy Club takes place this Thursday, 18th January at 7 pm in Portlaoise Library. The Genealogy Club is a friendly group of people who share an interest in family history. We meet once a month to share information and learn from one another. New members benefit from the knowledge and assistance...Read More

Join Irish historian and broadcaster, Myles Dungan, as he explores why there were so few women in positions of influence in the years before and after Irish Independence. The Alpha Male in Irish History is a tongue-in-cheek survey of Irish 'alpha' males from Charles Stewart Parnell to the prurient and relentless Roman Catholic Archbishop John...Read More

Some veterans of the Great War came home to war — they put their Royal Irish Constabulary uniforms back on, or they were shot as informers by the Irish Republican Army, or they joined the I.R.A. and provided a much needed leaven of military experience. This article tells the story of some of these men...Read More

John Henry Edge (1841‒1916) was the grandson of John Edge who was a manager of the Newtown colliery for the Grand Canal Company. John Henry spent part of his childhood in Clonbrock House, on the very southern edge of Laois, and part in Wicklow. He became a novelist late in life and published two novels...Read More

Portlaoise Library is hosting a talk next Wednesday, 7th December at 7.30 pm on the Irish language during the revolutionary period in Ireland. The bi-lingual talk by Dr Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc is about the hidden history of attempts to both kill off and save the Irish language during the Irish revolution.Read More

In the middle of July 1921 along with the news of the Truce came the news of the last deaths and the last imprisonments.Read More